"Jonathan Chetwynd" <j.chetwynd@btinternet.com>
> What was the intention* of the Working Group in providing pseudo-class**?
It gives authors the ability to change the rendering of content dependant on
the link being visited or not.
e.g.
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
<style type="text/css"><![CDATA[
rect { stroke:green; }
a :visited rect { stroke:red; }
]]></style>
<a xlink:href="/"><rect x="100" y="100" width="100" height="50"
fill="none"/></a>
<a xlink:href=""><rect x="100" y="300" width="100" height="50"
fill="none"/></a>
</svg>
The 2nd rect should show with a red stroke, the first with a green.
> The spec as it stands wouldn't seem to be setting a standard approach, how
> would authors use it, if it were implemented***?
It's not the job of a specification to say how an author should use it, how
it's used is down to what the author wants to achieve, you seem to be
confusing a particular rendering - the default non-CSS ones from HTML images
where an image as a link gets a border, with the ability to change a whole
range of properties which the CSS pseudo class provides.
The basic ability is provided for in SVG 1.1 currently - I agree it would be
nice to have this in non-CSS SVG User Agents, and I would like the WG too
consider this for future versions (along with the other suggestions we've
seen in the past related to CSS like features in the non CSS UA's).
If your issue is in reality that links are not identifable as links in a
consistment manner between SVG documents, and there's not a component of
this that is stylable, then you should raise this issue. Or if your issue
is that adding a border to an SVG graphic, as you demonstrate on your site,
is too complicated currently, then you should raise this.
There's nothing inherently wrong with the accessibility of this in this
particular area (there could be some authoring guidelines about consistent
use, but I can't see anything wrong with the specification)
> *HTML provides a standard use case with border, which isn't available
> directly in SVG.
This isn't really comparable (nor is it something that HTML specifies, it's
purely a convention used in many browsers, which has been the main thing
people have tried to disable for many years. This is also a very different
issue to the visited css pseudo-class, this is an issue with links not being
identified by the UA in SVG and/or the difficulty in automatically bordering
an svg group.
> Jim suggested a:visited rect { stroke:blue }
Please don't quote me out of context, this alone provides no help in
understanding the issues, and only serves to confuse people, the above is
obviously only relevant to certain documents.
Cheers,
Jim.